On a previous podcast, we chatted about Burnt Offerings. Now, it’s Offerings! This is a 1989 ripoff / regional horror, heavily influenced (ahem) by Halloween.
There’s an escaped lunatic, and an 80s-style prologue about how he grew up to be the vengeful antagonist he is.
This is guerilla film-making at its finest! And it comes complete with a John Carpenter knock-off score.
Mystifying, beguiling. These are just a few terms which could accurately use to describe the bonkers 1990s Italian horror, Night Killer.
Directed by two giants of Italian crap cinema, Claudio Fragasso (Troll 2) and Bruno Mattei (Rats/Hell of the Living Dead/Shocking Dark) Night Killer features an antagonist who is a bit of a cross between the Toxic Avenger, Klaus Kinski’s Nosferatu and Freddy Kruger, with none of the charm or scariness of any of them. Quite a feat.
The killer in question, who it should be pointed out, doesn’t kill at night, hunts down a bunch of dance students in a pathetic third-rate theatre. He also murders a woman in an aquarium for the sole purpose of her being there, and this being filmed in Virginia Beach. She seems to have been a complete afterthought. Much like the script. Or the plot. Or the mise en scene.
Night Killer is really really bizarre stuff. But of course, it’s right up our alley as hosts of the Really Awful Movies Podcast. Be sure to subscribe, and pick up our books to support the show.
On this week’s episode of the podcast, CRAP OF THE WEEK! This is a recurring segment, a review of things one-half of the Really Awful Movies team has seen recently.
On today’s show, Ghostkeeper, Rituals, Imposters and Bride of Re-Animator.
Ghostkeeper is an 80s Canadian / Canuxploitation tax shelter movie based on the Wendigo legend. It’s about a group of snowmobilers who find themselves stranded in a sprawling, mountain lodge not unlike the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Directed by James Makichuk, the creative force behind the awesome Hamilton and Toronto-lensed green energy (!) horror The Tower, Ghostkeeper has…a surfeit of the white stuff. This is one, snowy-ass movie.
Canadian horror completists need to check it out.
Also, Rituals. An oft-discussed film on the Really Awful Movies Podcast, this Hal Holbrook starrer is about bickering docs on a campaign trip in Northern Ontario. Go see it, it’s awesome. It’s tense and well written and a total Bechdel Test failure.
On this episode, we deviate slightly and tackle a TV series on Netflix called Imposters. It’s about a trio of people who find one another after being swindled by the same woman, a femme fatale-type named Maddy (who has various aliases, natch). They eventually become embroiled in the scam-artist lifestyle themselves.
Lastly, a revisiting of Bride of Re-Animator, an Amazon Prime watch which sees Dr. Herbert West back to his body-robbing shenanigans.